DSLRnewsshooter's Dan Chung has been speaking to Canon USA Technical Advisor Chuck Westfall for more details about the company's 4K Cinema EOS offerings. Both the 500C and 1D C are skewed towards cinema and high-end television production, rather than documentary and news work, Westfall says, but hints that 'peaking' and 'zebra' focusing and exposure aids could be added to the 1D C if the market demands it.

For those people still trying to work out why Canon is so interested in 4K video and who it thinks is going to be buying its kit, this nine-minute video is well worth watching.

Comments

Mr. Chuck Westfall talks straight to the needs of photographers. It only displays lack of cultivation to slag Chuck Westfall. This man Westfall has personally helped legions of photographers make sense of the digital world. I'm one of those photographers with whom he communicated in 2000-2001 while I struggled with making the changeover from film.

Canon had to dug out Chuck from deep freeze storage to try to salvage whatever reputation the company still has for actual real-life photographers, it seems. Still, he was none too comfortable talking on-camera, that is readily obvious. The lens never lies, remember.

First, I just want to say that Chuck looks totally stoned in the first part of this video. Secondly, yes, 15K is a lot of money to most of us, but to a lot of people, it isn't. In fact, when you're talking about even a super-low Hollywood budget, it isn't even a blip on the radar. I think we'll see a good number of 1DC bodies used as B-cams on movie and TV productions, or where space is limited, or where a camera with a rugged body is needed, etc. When you get down to brass tacks, the camera only costs half as much as one Zeiss Master Prime lens. I think Canon will sell more of them than you think.

However, I do agree that Canon has gone totally apeshit with their pricing across the board in the last year.

Hey, I like Chuck! Years ago he helped me solve problems with my early digital cameras when I thought an insanity defense was my only option 'cos I couldn't figure it out. Great communicator and glad to see he's still around.

Sony, and now Blackmagic are the only ones interested in offering pro features at non-kidney prices. Com'n, I bet one engineer could add peaking to the entire lineup's firmware in a day. Canon must think people are just blindly brand loyal... and they may be right. But they're basically betting on the halo effect of the 5D II and hoping no one will investigate further. But when $15k is at stake, I think people will start to question the $9k/$12k price bump over the 1D X/Mark III!

What I want to know is why the heck the 5D3 doesn't get those added in? They admit that camera for sure IS oriented towards the types of shooting that would need it so why does it not have have zebras and peaking (or a nice 1920x1080 super crisp using 2x2 C300 readout at 1.6x crop factor for more reach/etc.)?!?!!!

How many times does marketing have to hold back & mess things? Such sillly little basics? Stop the insane protectionism (like they do by making sure to cripple something as minor as AutoISO, ONCE AGAIN which the ridiculous limitation on the maximum speed you are allowed to set for the minimum shutter speed), especially if you raise the price $800 over the previous model.

Companies that play such extreme internal segmentation games tend to eventually give up the lead and fall on their faces.

They bragged about being infinitely far ahead if FF sensors & could rest on their laurles & now look at how much the D800 sensor wipes the 5D3 sensor for ISO100-400 dynamic range.

I wonder what promise Canon made to the investors... This is very expensive & very profitable stuff, but only if you have a strong foot in the market. Do they (Canon) have a strong foot in pro cinema?! Can someone provide some figures here? Thanks.

Why don't you copy and paste "I hate Canon, Canon is stupid, Canon is going under", for all your replies? That's pretty much the gist of all your comments. You spend a lot of time hating on something that obviously you have no intention of buying, or using.

To Dan Chung: Thank you for a very thoughtful interview with Canon. .... Clearly something is a foot in the industry. Maybe Canon is seeing saturation in it's consumer markets and is looking elsewhere for sales. .... When you see the production crews that get put together for the videography adds for DSLR videos, clearly someone outside of DSLR stills is interested in smaller formfactor cameras.

Canon had obviously totally lost its way a couple of years back, it increasingly seems. I just can't take them seriously with these recently announced crippled spec, yet greatly overpriced cameras of theirs.

This camera is seems very BAD.1. It is bad as photo camera because is overpriced and gives nothing more to photographer then 1D X.2 It is bad as cine camera, because 8bit jpg only3. It is bad as video camera, because overpriced.

Too funny...if you can't afford to buy our extremely overpriced camera, you should consider renting it sometimes in the near future... :))))) Chuck made me laugh.

If you ff to 9:17 of this video, right after beforementioned comment and look at the facial expressions it says it all:Dan's face says, no thanks, I'm not that stupid. Chuck's face says, I know you want it, it says Canon and it has Audio jack. :))

Actually, rental is a good choice. You rent an airline seat, you don't by a plane. To rent an SUV would make more sense than to have one depreciating in the garage or on a supermarket parking lot. If you don't shoot 4k video without a contract that warrants it, you sure don't want to have one sitting on your shelf. If you did, you'd certainly want to rent it to someone else.

Cy, it's not the point, rent or buy. The point is, it's an overpriced, underdeveloped camera for a price tag (even for $8k it would be too much)Funny you mentioned a plane. I'm actually studying for my license and be buying one hopefully soon (maybe rent, we'll see) :)

Seems like Canon wanted to release a $15k camera but didn't have one quite spec ready but they released it anyway and at $15k. I doubt the market will jump on this. I doubt any DP would rent this camera unless they have some relationship with Canon.

Pixel size is not the only factor but the one that has the most impact when it comes to relative sensitivity. I suppose both sensor have equivalent technology. Video requires higher sensitivities because of the 1/ 60 1/30 etc. shutter limit. The just announced Blackmagic Cinema camera has a base sensitivity of ISO800 due to its large pixel design. It is no magic, just larger pixels.

Really 18 vs 22MP means 1 stop better? Did they not look at the 36MP D800 sensor that has the same high ISO SNR as the 5D3 at 22MP or the D4 at 16MP? Folks it is the technology NOT the MP (unless RADICALLY different) that makes the difference.

Peaking and zebra aids exist on several consumer <$1,000 videocams. Maybe high-end studio rigs don't need them because the users have golden eyes that attain the perfect narrow DOF and bokeh. Only low end aviators need GPS or auto-pilot. Professionals have x-ray vision and can dead reckon throught he fog.

Well, to be fair pulling focus for movies is frequently done using a tape measure to determine near and far limits of DOF when you're doing the blocking. Of course that doesn't mean you release a camera with no focus assists at all and count on everyone who buys it to always have an assistant pulling focus.

"Well, to be fair pulling focus for movies is frequently done using a tape measure to determine near and far limits of DOF when you're doing the blocking. "To be fair :) That is a heritage from a film era that would never been accepted if video was invented today.

Actually, it's a heritage from 35mm and 65mm film. 16mm shooters pretty much always pulled focus solo. The reason that wasn't the case with larger film stocks was because it's nearly impossible to accurately pull focus by eyeballin' it with larger "sensors." That "heritage" persists to this day. News cameramen use 2/3" video cameras now that have sensors roughly the same size as 16mm film and they can (and do) pull focus for themselves. Meanwhile, if you watch feature films being shot there's still a guy with a tape measure pulling focus unless they go "fast and dirty" with a wide-angle lens. It's not so much about film vs. digital as it is about the size of the sensor. Small Sensor = Fun on the Run. Big Sensor = Slow on the Go. ;-)

I'm less clear on why DPReview is giving so much coverage to Canon video when it has a long tradition of barely mentioning video from other companies. Could it be because Canon isn't doing much with stills that's interesting...?

I REALLY don't want to make anyone in authority mad, but I totally share the concerns of those who are scratching their head at all the video stories appearing on here lately. Even respected Nikon expert Thom Hogan has expressed concerns at photography progress being snowed under by an avalanche of video interest. The same applies with this site covering video every 2.5 nanoseconds.

It is one thing to acknowledge that SLRs can record video, it's another for every other story here to be video-video-video. I mean every-time I turn around, there is yet another video story. It's almost as if this has turned into a site mostly about video, with a little photography sprinkled here & there for old time's sake, but otherwise--this is a site fully dedicated to almost NOTHING but videography now.

After all of these years, it's really disappointing to see this. Photography is still very relevant. There are plenty of people here who are interested in STILLS even if they ARE okay with SLR video.

If I'm overposting, forgive me. To me, I think painting vs photography is a good analogy. I don't doubt there is much overlap there, yet at the same I have heard of & even met persons who are into painting who are not into photography one bit. If you go back in time enough, it was once the case photographs didn't exist at all, paintings were IT. Can you imagine how puzzled artists of the day were once photography came to be, & especially when the Kodak Brownie made everyone a "photographer?"

Yet, painting survived, and what's more, people who don't disparage photography but just aren't interested in it because painting is what they do, we're totally okay with that. There are sites you can go to that deal with painting ONLY. No one is calling those sites or their fans "luddites." They like what they like, no disrespect to anyone else's interests. It's GOOD that you can be into painting & have no interest in photography & not be called a "luddite."

So if you want to shoot cinema and have $15k to spend there is the c300 or next step up in quality the Red Scarlet + accessories, so Chuck, why the 1Dc?? You didnt sayTo me who knows nothing of cinematography and less about photography the 1Dc appears to be a case of the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.Tim

odd comparisonnone were done in low light at all (all well lit, even if modulated)worse, ISO improperly chosen for the lighting at hand, then pp 'grading' to fix drastic over or underexposed footage.nobody should need to do pp 'fixes', but pp on optimally captured footage for any given lighting makes more sense.

What a joke. So why does it cost more than the X. Because we think we can get away with it.Why no focusing aids? We will listen to the market. I thought this was built after listening to the market.I could buy an X or a D4 plus the Blackmagic 2.5k raw and still have change.

There's a huge market for 4K footage, but not for 8-bit 4K footage. Even though home 4K displays are just now starting to appear the production crowd want it as an origination format even if they're delivering in 1080p. Much better to oversample on origination. Makes the HD deliverables look much less video-y. But nobody wants to shoot in 8-bit color. That's soccer-mom stuff. Fine for YouTube, but not something to shoot a TV show/movie on.

Any proof that YouTube videos look better on an iPhone, or even on the home 32" screen, if they were shoot in 4k at 150mbps? How long would the soccer mom's 5mbps server take to download or buffer the video before streaming? Does the extra time and cost improve the content or sales result?

I was watching coverage from NAB and 4K was everywhere. I don't get those who say 4K is irrelevant because there are no 4K TVs in the home. Do you turn away from the 36.3 megapixels of the Nikon D800 because you never print larger than 8x10? Do you chastise the music industry because they master at 96K/24 bits when the files you get can only be 8-bit MP3s or 16-bit CDs?

There was a bit of talk at NAB about how 4K is desirable for the same type of oversampling. It provides options for cropping and noise reduction, and for producing a better 1080p image than a 1080p camera on its own.

@graybalanced Apples and oranges. You can, and have been for many years been able to, print resolutions higher than your monitor. The resolution has been used for a long time already.

Video is quite different. There simply is no way to view 4K video yet expect movie theaters. Actually many of them are not able to project 4k. They all went with 3D (stereo) projectors which are designed to deliver higher frame rates rather than higher resolution. James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic, ...) said, after doing many tests, that he prefers higher frame rates for movies over higher resolution.

I'm not saying 4K is pointless. I have no doubt that 4K will eventually come, and it has advantages, but the lack of display/output devices at the moment makes any 4K camera a niche product for now. My point is more that the number of professionals is very small that can financially justify investing that much money in a photo camera that has a cheap version of 8bit 4K 'frankensteined' into it's body.

It's sad that people still argue against higher-quality acquisition because the delivery options right now are limited. Do you not value your work? There are millions of hours of historic footage that look like shít because they were shot on SD, interlaced video instead of film.

If you think your work has no value beyond today, then go ahead and use some half-assed acquisition format. Some of us hope that our work lasts a bit longer.

Your point would've been more compelling if you'd argued that 4K is pointless because there's no home-delivery medium that even offers decent HD, and quality is actually DECLINING over time as people gobble up compressed-to-hell crap on streaming services.

@octane, your explanation didn't address my post at all. You kept talking about having no way to display it. Yet I wasn't talking about capturing 4K to display 4K. I said there is demand to capture at 4K to produce a superior 1080p image, which was supported by my existing examples from other media, which you decided to ignore.

Canon needs to hire someone who knows something about motion pictures. They obviously didn't learn from the outrage over the lack of 24P on the 5D II. That move alone revealed their lack of basic knowledge about motion pictures.

Now they're flailing around even more disastrously with this baffling and inept product line. And why is this guy talking about raw output but then 4:4:4 in the same sentence? There is no color subsampling when you're capturing raw sensor data.

Q: What have you done to 1D c to justify the huge difference in price between it and 1D x?A: Headphone jack and slightly different software (we did nothing but estimated that people will pay that much money)I pray to heavens that canon gets a worthy rival soon so people can choose and not be blackmailed like this.Shame.

You can almost hear their design meetings. "Now we could certainly provide 4K video in the EOS-1D X using a Super-35 section of the sensor. It would probably add $45 to the unit cost, but we think it would make the camera more attractive to consumers even though the video will necessarily have to be 8-bit. Of course we could go ahead and triple the price while designating it as a 'professional' model...perhaps that would suck enough to wear the Canon logo? Can anyone think of any other good ways to ruin it before we finalize our release plans?"

Who the heck cares any more what anyone from Canon is saying, really? Company's cracked-up. They are on their way out.... way out. $15,000 DSLRs and matching 8-bit low-end color "high-end cinema" cameras for $16,000, ha-ha-ha-ha. What crock-pots!

Give it up already. C-man. When it comes to video-cams, just about everyone makes more interesting and better spec'd products than you guys do. And perhaps we should mention that at prices much lower than your own "Canon Corporate Bean-Counter Special MSRP Pricing."

BeanyPig, I saw your obituary in the papers -- was that all just another one of your many tiresome hoaxes, dude? And when it comes to cameras and stuff, you really don't know squat still, in this life or the other, huh?

BeanyPix, Canon is looking for a "Consultant Eggstraordinare" to teach them about how to break into "Digital Hollywoodland," was I wrong in suggesting to them that you were readily available and would work for absolutely nothing to boot?

8-bit video. Man, it's almost an insult. It's almost certainly a restriction imposed by the internal data bottlenecks, but there's nothing "professional" about 8-bit video. It's like higher-resolution HDV. I mean, it's better than nothing, but this isn't going to pose much of a threat to Red. The Scarlet is a crippled monstrosity, but even it can shoot 4K at 24p in 12-bit Recode RAW...for several thousand dollars less than the Canon EOS-1D C.

people spend too long sitting in front of a screen, reading specs. Its the new age of internet experts. When you meet them face to face they lack the strng persona they exhibit online. Their avatar shows them with their biggest lens mounted to their 550d, and they look almost professional until you realise its all a big myth. why don't they watch a few movies, or even better, create some of their own instead of hiding behind a load of technicalities gained from hours and hours of time wasted looking at specs under a magnifying glass. Shooting a good film with a super8 camera and a minidisk recorder is better than shooting nothing with uncompressed 'red raw'.

Uh, I don't know if that comment is directed at me, but that avatar of mine shows me with a Nikon F5 and a 135mm f/2. As for shooting Super-8 movies, I've done that. And 16mm movies. And 35mm movies. Not to mention years of shooting video for television.

I wasn't saying that you can't possibly shoot decent video using 8-bit origination. I was saying that with cheaper 12-bit options that won't show stepping in gradients most professionals wouldn't want to.

@ richg101: say, do you use that US$49.00 newfangled Thunderbolt cable to conenct your Super 8-cam to your "minidisk recorder," do you now? Where can we see the results, on www.twilightzone.com perhaps?

I knew Chuck when I was in grad school (Mizzou) and he and I would always argue Canon vs Leica. He's a smart, honest straight shooter. He has integrity by the ton. People who say otherwise are fools, or have an agenda. (Disclosure: I shoot Nikon -D800- and Canon -5D Mk II- prefer Nikon).